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home apprasial questions

The purpose of a bank appraisal is to satisfy the bank that the value of the home that you are pledging as an asset is sufficient to justify the mortgage. If you are a cynic, you may believe that the bank hires an appraiser to deliberately overstate the value of your home so they can make the mortgage to you, since they are simply going to package the mortgage and sell it to investors. Certainly this happened a lot during the housing bubble, and presumably still occurs today.

That said, if the bank is on the level, their appraisal is about how much they can sell the house for if you default, and is not about how much the house is worth in terms of a hands off, willing buyer willing seller transaction, which in theory is what your tax rate should be based on. So I doubt you could take the appraisal to your tax assessor and get a reduction in taxes, but you can certainly try if the appraisal is lower than your assessed value.

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home apprasial questions

I just had my appraisal, so here's what I know.

a) Yes, the appraisal is the estimation of how much your home is worth if it was sold right now.

b) Good question -- I want to know too.

c) Yes, my appraisal went over carpet condition, attic, drywall / paint, kitchen condition, roof condition, brick, etc. So keeping the indoors and outdoors clean helps. On an interesting note; I live on a slab, and apparently if I had a basement, my property value would go up by 2%. The appraiser also looked at similar neighboring properties and their current values.